Lamar Whitman Posts

CompTIA consistently has called for repeal of the 3% federal tax withholding on government contracts.  Finally, the Senate has acted, passing H.R. 674 by a vote of 95-0.  This follows overwhelming passage by the House on October 27.  However, the bill must now return to the House for a vote, as an amendment (which passed by a 94-1 vote) was added to the original House version that would: Provide tax credits for veterans hiring; Require a Treasury study of tax delinquency among federal contractor ...

In prior blogs, we’ve discussed our concerns about the Main Street Fairness Act and the Marketplace Freedom Act and how any increased compliance burdens may be imposed on many small businesses.We understand the concerns of many states that they are losing tax revenues due to the failure of purchasers to voluntarily file and pay use taxes on out-of-state purchases.  But the problem is not that businesses need to be “cracked-down” on because of some failing; the cause of the problem is that the st ...

As the economy dived, small businesses found capital to be hard (if not impossible) to secure.  Consequently, many small businesses are still working their way out of tough economic times, and most have had difficulty growing and adding employees.  While there is no single answer to this urgent problem, there are a number of small steps that Congress can take that will allow small businesses to raise capital more easily.  Clearly, our national economic recovery will not be achieved until small b ...

Congress continues to look at the complications of collecting sales taxes for interstate transactions completed via the Internet.  Earlier we discussed the Main Street Fairness Act, which would require interstate sellers to collect and remit sales taxes to the states into which sales are made.  Our concern with that legislation was that it failed to define a “small seller exception.”  Although the Main Street Fairness Act would require certain small sellers be exempted, this legislation would gi ...

As small businesses across the country continue to search for reliable sources of capital, Congress has fallen short of providing real solutions.  While there is no magic bullet that will free up much needed capital, there are some small steps that can be taken immediately to aid in capital formation for some small businesses.  H.R. 1070/S. 1544, the “Small Company Capital Formation Act of 2011” would reduce the filing and compliance burdens for certain small businesses that seek to raise capita ...

The President’s $447 Billion jobs bill, S. 1660, the “American Jobs Act of 2011,” failed to garner the votes needed to move forward.  By a margin of 50-49, the Senate vote fell short of the 60 votes needed to avoid a filibuster.This jobs bill was made particularly unpopular to most Republicans after Senate leadership changed the funding mechanism to a “millionaire surtax.”  Basically, this millionaire surtax would have required individuals to pay an additional 5.6-percent surtax on incomes in ex ...

The President’s $447 billion jobs bill includes a number of provisions that would benefit small businesses.  This legislation, which was sent to Congress on Monday, would: Provide a 50-percent reduction in payroll taxes for the first $5 million in wages.  Approximately 98 percent of all businesses pay out less than $5 million in wages. Eliminate employer payroll taxes for small businesses that create jobs or give a wage increase from the prior year.   An employer that increases an employee’s wag ...

The “Digital Goods and Services Tax Fairness Act of 2011” (H.R. 1860 and S. 971) would bring some certainty to an endless tangle of state tax rules and regulations.  This legislation would restrict collection of sales taxes on digital goods and services to the jurisdiction encompassing the buyer’s tax address.  It also would bar a state from imposing multiple or discriminatory taxes on the sale or use of digital goods or services, but does not cover telecommunications service, Internet access se ...

The President announced new initiatives recommended by the White House Rural Council for creating jobs in rural America.  These initiatives are intended to help rural small businesses access capital, expand rural job search and training services, and increase rural access to healthcare workers and technology.   CompTIA has long-noted similar needs within the small IT community – whether rural or urban.Included in these initiatives are: $350 million in SBA funding over the next five years to ...

A full room greeted the health IT track of CompTIA’s inaugural Tech Summit last week, with attendees eager to learn about the state of electronic medical records (EMR) adoption and how to overcome barriers. It quickly became apparent that while much of the world considers HIT and EMRs to be new phenomena, panelists representing the IT industry and government agencies agreed that these technologies had merely been stimulated by Federal legislation. Charles Jarvis, vice president of healthc ...